The Rebel Sell

In The Rebel Sell: Why The Culture Can't Be Jammed, authors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter suggest that the there's no difference between a hippie and a hipster; that "cool" is a positional good that hinges on exploitation (not to mention that nobody was ever positively changed by psychedelics). Their position: that the bourgeoisie were a class that stood on the backs of the poor because of greater economic weight; that without the poor, there could be no rich. But icons in the counterculture are guilty of similar inequities, changing the rules by getting their "cool" as a good that's only "cool" because it's not mainstream. Their argument: that by chasing the standard of "cool," which is constantly changing as previously "cool" things get mainstreamed, the cultural elite becomes the new bourgeoisie.

Their arguments hinge on a few points. One of these points is that "cool" is totally ephemeral. They use the example of Burberry, a suave British label with a distinctive style that broadcasts a sort of aristocratic air about the wearer. But when lower-class people started reclaiming Burberry as their own brand, the "cool people" had to find a new brand, which meant a shitload of new money spent not feeding the poor or healing the sick, but on wearing something that hadn't yet been claimed by the chavs.

They later extend the argument to people paying the organic premium on food, buying sneakers made from recycled tires instead of Nikes, and participating in Buy Nothing Day. The suggestion is - and they literally use a Beavis and Butthead reference here - "without stuff that sucks, nothing is cool."

The suggestion here sounds like the rephrasing of an old argument: the denial of the sublime. The same mistake gets made by atheists, who would suggest that just because Bible-thumping theists are probably wrong that there's an invisible white man in the sky, that there's no divine spark to be found anywhere in the universe(s).

Getting back to the point: sure, there are particular aesthetics that are "cool" because they're uncommon. Vinyl clothing, Chuck Taylors, and the Burberry plaid are all positional goods; you can afford them, or you can't - with the implication that if you can't afford them (or choose not to), then you must not be cool.

But let's stop looking at the "misses" of counterculture, and start looking at the "hits." How would Heath and Potter describe DIY? Or the fact that ecstatic dance culture is tying in with the global permaculture movement?

In other words, there are things that are "cool" that are actually, well, cool. It's cool to reduce your economic footprint, for instance; environmental solvency isn't exactly something that starts to suck as soon as it goes mainstream, yeh? And let's take a look at Christianity, which started as a countercultural movement (there are still Christians in the world who consider Christianity a counterculture); there are plenty of aspects of the character of Jesus that are still cool to today. No surprise that "righteous" became surfer-speak for "cool." Or another commonality in the way that psychedelic culture now uses "conscious" as a descriptor for excellent and transcendent tracks.

Heath and Potter commonly use allegations of hippydom as a pejorative, with the underlying assumption that the hippies were wrong. To be more specific, many people cite the excesses of the 60s in suggesting that for all their positive rhetoric, all the hippies really wanted to do was get high. But every generation learns, and there's one important thing to take into account; many of us are the children of hippies, and we're taking hints from those of our parents who did end up selling out.

The Rebel Sell takes a position that counterculture seeks to destroy mainstream culture. I would make the argument more specific in that it seeks to replace mainstream culture. In theory, this only leads to one type of "cool" getting co-opted by the next... with one subculture dying out and more rushing in to take the throne. But what if it's not about the throne?

This generation of countercultures seems to be doing something different. Open source is not only challenging domination of intellectual property, but seeks to demolish the idea of intellectual property in the first place. Internet culture is a meritocracy, determined not by entitlement, but by involvement and savvy which is becoming more freely available every day. DIY attempts to make the least expensive option the coolest, rather than requiring cool-hunters to drop money on garments whose costs could feed villages.

In other words, several of these new countercultures are seeking to make self-empowerment, healing, and peace the new "cool." At that point - as long as the culture remains authentic - how could we go wrong by the mainstreaming of those concepts?

Future post pending on my upcoming trip to explore California counterculture - and what the hell happened to PLUR.